I'm a longtime cobalt user new to shark. I'm having issues with the microscribe which is also new to me. The microscribe is used and I think there may a problem with it. Here is what happens:
I initialize the mscribe origin, x, y and for the extents I'm using the far x and y. Is this correct?
I select the Digitize curves icon, points, .010, .001
I touch the mscribe point to the part, step and hold the pedal while tracing the part. I can see all the points on the screen, however when I let up on the pedal most of the points disappear. The points that are left are not .010 apart. I've tried this with a nearly straight line at 1.0 intervals and get different distances also. The first one was around .750 and the second .860 etc.

If I try the same with a spline the spline looks just like the part until I let up on the pedal.

--dale

Tim,
I'm on winXP. Could you please clarify the initialization proceedure. After I pick the origin, a point on x and a point on y what do I choose for the extents? Do I pick the far points in the xz and yz planes?

I've played with this thing some more and here is what I'm finding:
Working in the xy plane, using a graduated steel angle with the corner as origin I am tracing from x2 to x12 for a total of 10 inches measured.

- If I use the point tool from the normal tool palette and visually click at 1 inch increments for a total of 11 points I get between .098 to 1.01 with a total distance of 9.99.

- If I use the digitize curves in the microscribe palette, set to 1 inch points, step on the pedal and slowly follow the straight edge, letting up on the pedal at the end. I get 15 points ranging from .021 to .850 with the total distance at 9.89.

Tim,
Thank you for the information. Neat application for concepts and the scribe. I've read all through it and still have some questions. I believe the extents for initialization are the far points in the zx plane and the zy plane, is that correct?

What I'm trying to create is a digital shore line from a navigational chart. The customer only wants a representational shape, however even with my points set at .010 and the deviation at .001, I'm not even close. If I watch points created on the screen it looks fine, however when I let off of the pedal to create the spline I get something vastly different that doesn't even resemble the shore line. I think Shark is tracking the movement of the scribe however the data points aren't representative of the small scale.

Perhaps the problem lies with me. I'm not sure I understand the data I should be getting, please correct me if I'm wrong.

1)If I select the points tool from the scribe menu I should get points the set distance along the path that I travel. The points may not measure the set distance depending on direction of travel, however if traveling in a straight line they will be at set intervals.

2)With Poly lines the length of the line will be the longest length possible and still fit the point data as described in #1.

3)The same conditions apply to splines, however the spline will pass through the points within the deviation setting.

The best data I can get is with the standard point spline tool and clicking allot of points. The trace spline tool acts like the data that I'm getting with the scribe tools.
--dale

Hi Dale,
I don't know much about Microscribe, but I did a search in
http://www.eng-tips.com/
and it looks like it is similar to the Faro arm, and information may be available from the users at eng-tips.
Larry